


HOW STRAIT THE GATE

by ivorygates



Series: How Strait The Gate [2]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Dark, Doctor Darkside, M/M, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 13:36:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mitchell still doesn't get it.</p><p>Maybe Mitchell never will, and in a way that would be a shame, but this has never been about revenge.</p><p>It's been about survival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	HOW STRAIT THE GATE

**Author's Note:**

> For my wonderful betas: Seperis, Kijo, and Scarlette Skye

The first time Mitchell is inside him, he thinks of Jack.

Jack in the Coverstone Lab, the first time he ever saw him.

Jack on Abydos, in Ra's throne room. And one of the Jaffa had raised a staff weapon, and he'd thrown himself in the way. For a man he'd barely known, and who obviously hated him.

Right.

He'd died. He'd been reborn (the first of what would turn out to be far too many times.) They'd escaped. And then he discovered that Jack intended to kill all of them in order to destroy the Stargate.

Because for Jack, the mission was the most important thing.  
  
Together they'd found another way to complete Jack's mission. And a lot of other things had happened and then they'd spent eight years working together, closer than brothers. Jack had taught him so much. Jack had given him everything.

Jack had taught him that it was always about the mission. But that there are so many different ways to interpret what a mission is about.

Shades of grey.

Mitchell has always been fascinated by Jack O'Neill. That was clear from the moment he entered Stargate Command. He hovered around Daniel in a sort of bizarre mating dance, as much to find out the things about Jack that never made it into the mission reports as to lure Daniel back to SG-1. Always attempting to place his stamp of ownership on Dr. Daniel Jackson. To have what Jack O'Neill had in precisely the same way.

Though that isn't possible.

Mitchell gasps his way to climax, his sweat pooling on Daniel's back. He rests his face between Daniel's shoulders, and Daniel feels the scrape of stubble on his skin. Mitchell hadn't shaved before he'd come over.

It's taken them most of a year to get here. To Mitchell, naked, in Daniel's bed. In Daniel's body. Past the invasion of personal space. The over-familiar touches. The shared beers (and Daniel still hates beer.) The careful, below-the-radar approach, because Cameron Mitchell is an Air Force Officer, and should this liaison become public knowledge, Mitchell would be forced to resign his commission.

General Landry would hate that. Mitchell is his Golden Boy. Receiving as much latitude from General Landry as Jack ever did from General Hammond back in the old days.

Which is why they're here.

Mitchell slips a hand under Daniel's body. Daniel can feel the gun-calluses of Mitchell's fingers and palm scrape along the smooth skin of his belly. Those are new. Pilots don't get them.

Mitchell's hand slides down further. Target acquired. His fingers close around Daniel's cock with easy familiarity.

"You didn't come."

His breath tickles Daniel's ear. He sounds vaguely disappointed.

"It's all right," Daniel says into the pillow.

He's come on other occasions. This isn't the first time they've had sex. Not precisely. Cameron Mitchell is an aggressive and inventive partner. Obviously experienced. Likes men. It's that 'Top Gun' competitiveness carried to its logical conclusion. There isn't any real thrill of victory in dominating -- in any sense of the word -- a woman.

The only real thrill comes in going one-on-one with your own sex. Physically, biologically, mentally, your equal.

Daniel's an anthropologist, if not a psychologist. He's read the literature.

He's very familiar with the mindset.

"I'll take care of you." Mitchell's voice, husky with satiation and sex, is thick with the accents of Tennessee. It makes this somehow even more perverse.

Mitchell pulls out too quickly, a hand on Daniel's hip flipping him over with that easy assumption of possession. But they all belong to Mitchell now. Him and Sam and Teal'c. SG-1.

It hurts a little; not too much. But he's just as glad that they aren't at the top of the rotation for three more days, and that Mitchell can apparently sweet-talk Dr. Lam into practically anything, which means pre- and post-mission physicals shouldn't be a problem.

Mitchell strips off the condom he was wearing a moment ago and sets it carefully aside. It will leak, but they can change the sheets later. Then he kneels between Daniel's knees, looking down at him with a heavy-lidded gaze of ownership.

Not so different from the way he looked at Daniel in the Briefing Room in the moment before he slapped the SG-1 flash onto his arm.

Claiming him.

Then Mitchell bends forward -– flutter of hot breath, scrape of stubble against the inside of Daniel's thigh -– and then his mouth is on Daniel's half-hard cock and there's a moment when the world realigns itself and then there is only heat and wetness, suction and pleasure.

Daniel thinks of Jack.

#

The second time Mitchell is inside him, he thinks of Atlantis.

He'd been supposed to go.

Jack had gone to Washington, Sam had gone to Area 51, Teal'c had gone to Dakara, and he was going to Atlantis. If not for Vala, he would have gone, too. And there'd be no Ori now. No Mitchell.

Now Vala is gone and the Ori aren't.

And neither is Mitchell.

Mitchell likes to take risks.

They haven't done it in the Gateroom yet, but Daniel thinks it's only a matter of time. Mitchell has jerked him off in the showers in the men's locker room, thrusting his cock between Daniel's clenched soap-slicked thighs at the same time. He's provided the quickest blow-job on record in the supply closet on 14, because the supply closets are one of the few places on Base that do not have security cameras. They've done a number of things outdoors, some of them involving ice cream as a sexual aid.

It's been three months, now, since he was the last one at Mitchell's apartment on Movie Night. Sam had already left to drive Teal'c back to Base.

He'd been pretty sure he'd known what was coming. He'd encouraged it as discreetly as he could.

#

Daniel goes into the kitchen, clearing away the mess. Mitchell lives in one of the condominium complexes near Peterson; a step up from on-Base housing, but Mitchell doesn't qualify for that anyway, since he isn't assigned to Peterson. He's talking about buying a house, soon. Sam has offered to help him look.

Like the man himself, the apartment is a jigsaw of contradictions. The furniture seems to be hand-me-downs, but the electronics are new (Teal'c loves the media center.) The kitchen is crammed with professional cookware, but there are no bookshelves; Mitchell doesn't seem to be much of a reader. It's as if he's only half here.

But instead of pizza and popcorn (the main staples of Movie Night back in the old days) Mitchell has cooked. Ham and beans and cornbread and red velvet cake. There's chips and dip to go with the movie, of course, but even the dip has been home made.

Mitchell swaps recipes with Sam during the slow parts of the movie, but he sits next to Daniel.

And after the others have left, Daniel is in the kitchen with Mitchell. He's unloading the dishwasher to load it again. There are a lot of dishes. That's what happens when you cook.

"You could stay for breakfast, you know," Mitchell says, stepping behind him. "Biscuits with red-eye gravy. I make a mean red-eye gravy. You'd like it. I know you would."

"Why do you think that?" Daniel asks, not moving.

"It's made with coffee."

"That's not the only thing it takes coffee to make," Daniel says, setting the pan in his hands on the counter. And Mitchell takes another step forward, and now their bodies are brushing, just barely, back to front.

And Daniel knows the next move is up to him. He leans his weight back, and now he can feel the pressure of Mitchell's body against his.

He feels Mitchell take a deep breath.

And an arm comes around him, pulling him back against Mitchell's chest.

"Oh, I was right about you, Jackson."

Mitchell's voice is gloating in his ear, breathless with triumph and anticipation. Daniel can feel the hardness of Mitchell's cock pressing against his buttocks as Mitchell's other hand -– the one not holding Daniel against him -– comes down, stroking over Daniel's stomach, hesitating at his belt for a moment, then moving lower as Mitchell rubs Daniel's groin through the fabric of his khakis, forcing their bodies together.

"I think, considering what we're about to do, that you could call me Daniel," he says.

#

But Mitchell never does. It's always 'Jackson.' Daniel tries calling him 'Cameron' for a while, then stops. It never feels right. 'Mitchell' suits him. Or even 'Colonel Mitchell.'

Sam can't really settle on what to call him either, Daniel notices.

At least she isn't sleeping with him.

#

But they don't sleep together. As the weeks pass, Daniel actually begins to wonder if Mitchell does sleep. He's always at the SGC before Daniel arrives, and there after Daniel leaves. Even sex doesn't slow Cameron Mitchell down; no post-coital lull for Colonel Mitchell. If he doesn't go bouncing off afterward in search of food, or television, or (horrifyingly) to suggest a pick-up game of basketball (Daniel is seven years older than Mitchell, and there are days on which Mitchell makes him feel every one of those years) he wants to talk.

#

"What was he like?"

"Who?"

"Him. Colonel O'Neill. General O'Neill, I mean."

They're in Mitchell's living room. Naked. The blinds are open, and anyone with a telephoto lens has certainly been able to see what they've been doing for the past half hour. On Mitchell's couch.

Mitchell doesn't seem to understand the idea of 'caution' or 'appropriate level of risk.'

But then, Daniel knew that already.

They've been going on missions together for almost a year.

Daniel spent most of the day deliberately winding Mitchell up, just to see if he could. Promised to let Mitchell inside him. Something he's not a fan of and Mitchell is.

The ultimate act of possession.

They didn't make it to the bedroom, which would obviously have been too far. Fortunately Daniel knows his partner by now, and had lube in his jacket pocket. He's pretty sure that Mitchell wouldn't have fucked him dry, but it's nice to be absolutely sure, and the way to be absolutely sure is to always carry lube.

They've made a mess of Mitchell's couch. Mitchell insists that he come. He didn't at first. Couldn't. But it's one of Mitchell's requirements. Almost an obsession.

Who would have thought such a macho flyboy would go for glazed chintz cabbage roses? Daniel wonders if the couch is a gift from a relative.

Probably.

"You've read the mission reports," Daniel says.

All he wants to do after orgasm, good or bad -- and actually, there are no bad orgasms -- is sleep. Mitchell wants to talk. Or cook. Or anything but sleep.

"No, I mean--"

"That is one thing we're never going to talk about," Daniel says firmly.

Though he knows Mitchell wants to.

And 'never' is a very long time.

He thinks of Atlantis.

#

The third time Mitchell is inside him Daniel thinks of nothing at all.

They're in Sam's lab.

Suicidally risky to be doing this on-Base.

It was his idea.

They have a window of opportunity, because Daedalus is back with some of the Atlantis personnel -- including Dr. Rodney McKay -- and McKay always makes Sam crazy. She'll be sitting in on the debriefing and that means it will take a while.

And she fried the security cameras in her office last week with an EM pulse and Sergeant Siler hasn't gotten around to replacing them yet.

Unlike the storage closets, Sam's lab can be locked with a Restricted Access Card. Sam can open it, because it's her office.

Mitchell can open it too. Team leader. Though technically he defers to Sam in matters involving her area of expertise, as he's supposed to defer to Daniel as well, in the field there can be only one commander, and they all know it. In the field, by Air Force and SGC decree, Mitchell calls the shots.

From the moment Daniel told him that Sam's lab was off-line to the security net, he's known that Mitchell has been wondering how they could get an hour alone there.

This is how.

The members of the Atlantis Mission are like visiting rock stars. Everybody wants a piece of them. Physics and Engineering are being debriefed separately from Archaeology and Linguistics, fortunately. Nobody will notice an hour's absence on the part of Dr. Daniel Jackson.

#

Out of the corner of his eye Daniel sees the door to the lab open.

Mitchell does not.

Mitchell is thrusting into him. He growls with pleasure, hands gripping Daniel's hips, and the air is heavy with the scent of sex. Daniel is bent forward over one of Sam's tables. He's quite naked. His clothes are folded neatly beneath him, padding and insulating him from the table's sharp cold surface.

Behind him, Mitchell is equally naked. Mitchell likes skin-on-skin. And it's private here.

Or it was supposed to be.

There's a strangled choking sound from the doorway. A sound between a bleat and a quack. The kind of sound a person makes when they're seeing something they really never expected to see.

Daniel looks toward the sound, meeting Sgt. Siler's horrified gaze. Beside Siler is an airman with a dolly full of gear.

Sam's in a long meeting. What better time to change out her security cameras?

He puts his head down on his arms, blotting out the sight of his observers.

The sound, the movement, the change in the light, something alerts Mitchell. He freezes in place, his hands closing so hard on Daniel's hips that Daniel is sure there will be bruises later, his body pressing Daniel so hard against the table that there will be other bruises to match.

"Get out," he snarls. Daniel imagines him whipping his head around and glaring.

Siler -- poor, unlucky Siler -- makes yet another inarticulate sound. Daniel hears the door close.

#

They're alone.

"It's all right," Mitchell says. "It's going to be all right, Jackson." He leans forward, and for one transfixed moment Daniel thinks Mitchell may be about to kiss him -– it's something they've never done -- but no. Mitchell only leans his cheek against his shoulder for a moment, then pulls away, running a hand apologetically down Daniel's thigh.

"He won't talk," Mitchell says, and Daniel wonders which of them he's trying to convince, because Siler will talk. The only question is, who will he talk to, and how many people, and when.

And if he doesn't, the airman with him certainly will.

Mitchell finally moves -– the interruption definitely killed the moment -- and now Daniel can move too. He gathers up his neatly-piled clothing from the tabletop and moves behind it, giving himself a little privacy in which to dress. Mitchell isn't so organized. His clothes are scattered all around the room, and he has to hunt to find all the pieces. Daniel hopes he doesn't break anything in his search. Sam will be angry enough that they were here at all.

He concentrates on dressing himself, concentrating on thinking of nothing at all. When everything else is done, he locates his boots and socks and sits down to put them on, wincing slightly.

"You're worrying," Mitchell says.

Daniel looks up. Mitchell is looking at him. Smiling slightly. That faint expression of patronizing good humor.

"They saw us," Daniel says slowly. Trying to make things very clear.

Mitchell shakes his head. Not believing his luck can possibly run out. His smile widens, a cocky flyboy grin now. Partly for Daniel's benefit, he knows. One should always reassure subordinates that things aren't as bad as they actually are.

But partly, Daniel knows, Mitchell really believes that he's going to get out of this one unscathed. After all, isn't Cameron Mitchell Death's Golden Boy? The man who survived Antarctica? The one who's always made it out the other side alive?

His friends and colleagues have all died all around him, but Mitchell always survives.

Daniel has learned this and more about him over the past year.

And in the past few months.

"It's going to be okay," Mitchell says. "You'll see."

Daniel gets to his feet. "I've got a briefing to get to."

And time for a shower first, if he's quick.

Daniel smiles in return and walks out of Sam's lab.

#

"I didn't know you--"

"I don't."

Sam regards him in blank silence.

Not what she'd expected to hear.

She's come to his apartment. Commiserating over his sudden fall from grace.

Still his friend.

He's spending two weeks in Coventry, but he'll be going back to the Program at the end of it.

Mitchell will not.

It didn't take as long as Daniel thought for word to get out. By the end of the day they were both in General Landry's office.

Mitchell's resignation has probably already been accepted. By now –- or certainly by the end of the week -– his exit interviews will be over and he will be on the way to the rest of his life. A civilian life far from the United States Air Force and the Stargate Program. Far from SG-1.

One of the reasons Daniel has this enforced two-week not-precisely-vacation is to make sure that he and Mitchell don't meet during that time.

It would be awkward.

It's equally-awkward to be interned in his own apartment (or at least away from the SGC) while the Atlantis Mission is on-Base, but at least he's allowed access to the Atlantean Archaeo-Linguists by phone and computer. And they'll be here for another two weeks after he gets back. Not as much time with them as he'd hoped for, but maybe he'll get a chance to go to Atlantis.

Someday.

Mitchell has called. He hasn't picked up.

Mitchell still doesn't get it.

Maybe Mitchell never will, and in a way that would be a shame, but this has never been about revenge.

It's been about survival.

"I'm not," he amplifies, spelling it out for Sam. "I'm not gay. Mitchell may be -– though strictly speaking, I think he's bisexual -- but I'm not. Straight here. Always have been."

No matter what anyone said, or thought, or assumed.

Including Mitchell, assuming that he and Jack had been lovers.

Jack would either have a coronary or laugh himself sick at the thought. Was it Tuesday or Wednesday? Jack might have a lot of quirks, and be confused about a lot of things in life, but he wasn't in the least confused about what he wanted to see between his bedsheets. Women, preferably leggy blue-eyed blondes when not in his direct chain of command.

Sam frowns, faintly. She doesn't get it yet.

"Daniel, I know General Landry has done his best to, well, keep this quiet. But..." She shakes her head. "People know."

"Yes." Daniel sighs. The next few months aren't going to be easy. "And now Mitchell has resigned, and the next time we go through the Gate -– because as far as I know, I'm still on SG-1 -- we're not going to be dragged into the middle of a disaster by somebody who just doesn't stop to listen or think."

Sam's eyes widen.

She finally gets it.

"You set him up."

Her voice is without inflection, and Daniel isn't sure what he expected to hear. Admiration? Condemnation? But this is Sam, his closest friend for nearly a decade. A scientist. She thinks carefully, evaluates the data, before reaching a decision.

"I was the only one who could."

Teal'c would never have considered it.

Sam couldn't. An affair between Mitchell and Sam would only have been a minor peccadillo -– officially. Unofficially, a major blow to Sam's career.

And she hadn't been the one Mitchell had been interested in, anyway.

"You could have gone to General Landry," she says, her voice still neutral.

"So could you. And what could either of us have said? That we didn't like taking risks? A little odd, considering SG-1's track-record. We could also have refused to serve on SG-1."

But the stakes had been too high. Then and always.

"You could have told me," she offers then.

"'Don't ask, don't tell,'" Daniel says.

Sam makes a face. Thinks for a moment.

"But Daniel. In my lab?" Her voice holds a note of outraged indignation now.

"Siler wouldn't walk in on us in my office," he says reasonably. "I knew he'd be coming to your lab during the meeting. After all, you'd done such a great job frying your security cameras last week."

He'd been sure he could keep Mitchell in Sam's lab long enough for the two of them to be caught there in flagrante.

Mitchell liked to take risks.

Mitchell always wanted to make sure Daniel came.

"Oh my god." Sam tries not to smile, but she can't manage it. Puts her arms around him. He hugs her back tightly, more relieved than he thought he'd be that she's accepted this. Both the necessity, and his lie. Sam hates deceits, deceptions, cover-ups, and he'd thought...

"Oh, Daniel, you're in so much trouble now," she says against his neck.

"What?"

He's dealt with General Landry's loud displeasure, he'll never have to see -– or be touched by -- Mitchell again. The trouble is over, or most of it. But then Sam says two words that make his stomach sink.

"General O'Neill."

#

After Sam leaves, Daniel goes into the kitchen to make himself coffee.

He's alone in the apartment, but it's the first time in months that he's felt as if he's really alone.

It's a good feeling.

He gave up so much of his self for this.

He thinks of Jack.

And a mission a long time ago when Jack gave up everything: friends, trust, career. Because someone was stealing their allies' technology, and Jack was the only one everyone trusted to find out who.

Jack had lied to all of them then. Hoping they had faith enough in him to see them all out safe on the other side.

Daniel nearly hadn't made it.

Then and now.

He picks up the phone and dials.

A number in Washington.

Never lovers, never will be, but always friends.

Mitchell was Jack's pick for SG-1, though Jack never meant to cheat Sam out of her first command. Always meant for Sam to lead SG-1 after him.

As much as you can ever plan and decide and intend in the military.

Everything else -- everything that actually happened -- was bad luck.

For all of them.

And now it's time to talk.

###

_It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. ___

__– W. E. Henley_ _


End file.
